this is the other big news tonight from across europe as well as the u.s. and canada it's a show of support in for britain which blames moscow over the poisoning of former double agent surrogates cripple and his daughter earlier this month first the view from london our team there. collective response from the e.u. donald tusk the president of the european council he announced these collective measures saying that the e.u. agrees with the u.k.'s assessment that it was quote highly likely that the kremlin was behind the poisoning of sergei and script how so well over a dozen states have pledged their support to the british prime minister and they are expelling scores of russian diplomats from capitals across the e.u. to resume a spoke in parliament earlier and she was clearly rather pleased with the support from brussels and from the u.s. canada and the ukraine for that matter take a listen to what she had to say. great for the geraghty from our friends and

partners in the e.u. north america nato and beyond over the past three weeks and today eighteen countries have announced their intention to expel more than one hundred russian intelligence officers from and. this includes fifteen e.u. member states as well as the united states canada and the ukraine. and even though moscow denies the allegation that it was behind the attack in seoul's worry the list of expulsions of diplomatic expulsions is extensive among the countries that russian diplomats are going to be departing from france germany poland lithuania denmark the czech republic the list continues however not all e.u. states have signed up to kicking out russian diplomats austria notably has announced that the russian diplomats can remain and also garia has said that it

won't be expelling any russian diplomats that are currently stationed there also at the e.u. summit last week that summit where to resume a so successfully argued for this collective european response. called younger the president of the european commission he advocated a rather different approach to moscow take a listen to what he had to say everyone was sure. you can do really. sure she's concerned. about the relationship we need to open to discuss you for sure all of them do not question. so not all e.u. states on the same page and not all figureheads agreed to the extent to which to punish moscow or to cooperate with it perhaps instead nevertheless what's happened today is being billed as the biggest collective expulsion of russian

diplomats in history all this while the investigations about police investigation and also the independent o.p.c. w one they are still ongoing it seems that the old complete unity of voices in europe was spurred from across the atlantic. the president spoke with many foreign leaders. our european allies and others and encouraged them to join the united states in this. in this announcement as you've just heard the u.s. was the driving force behind these expulsions with trump encouraging others to take similar measures now the u.s. will be expelling the most number of russian diplomats out of all the countries that have decided to do so the white house will be sixty diplomats twelve of which are u.n. staff members and they'll have approximately seven days to leave a u.n. representative was grilled about this whether this move will violate an agreement that was made between the u.s. and the u.n. in the forty's let's take a quick look does the u.n.

believe that this in any way violates the u.s. the gripman with the u.n. of nine hundred forty seven the host country agreement given the sensitivity of the matter which is ongoing we will not comment further at this stage u.s. mission says that and i quote our actions are consistent with the united nations headquarters agreement do you agree with the statement we were informed of the u.s. decision to take action under section thirteen b. of the u.n. u.s. headquarters agreement. you can you can look at our tree section and read section thirteen be for yourself and evaluate it for yourself or if one you told us to read thirteen b. and see whether what we thought it said was like the secretary general think to for the reasons i just explained i wouldn't venture an opinion on that for just out of sheer niceness inconvenience to you i will read to you section thirteen be at the stage bear with me because it is long. as the united states need to provide evidence of this espionage to the un and russia i've said what i can

say at this stage but at the same time a white house spokesperson says that the us is ready to cooperate with russia a message that clearly contradicts washington's actions the president still remains open to working with the russians on areas of mutual concern counterterrorism for example and others now with this latest decision in relations between the two countries are add an all time low so we'll just have to wait and see what happens while reactions are going to be coming in from the moscow side russia's reacted angrily to the expulsions and says the moves won't remain unanswered for long medina cochon of the reports next from moscow. well we've heard from the russian foreign ministry spokesperson marty is a kind of a who said that reciprocal measures will be taking against each country that decided to expel russian diplomats and overall we're talking about over a dozen countries that supported this move now she also added that adds remember

that was taking will be mad mero measure in response including the shutdown of the russian consulate and the u.s. now shortly after at this news that a number of countries are expelling russian diplomats broke the russian foreign ministry released a statement and this statement. expressed protest these expulsions calling them an unfriendly stab that will not find any answers and these case the statement also goes on to say that the exposure and are being seen as a provocation adding that such a hostile move on part of this group of countries will not be allowed. and indeed we've heard from a number of high level officials in the russian diplomatic society now an authority on tone of who is the russian ambassador to the u.s. has protested against what he called a wrongful decision by the u.s.

to expel russian diplomats told to fit in for a month long learning about the expulsions are expressed a strong position to the move but i pointed out today there's not been a single shred of evidence of russia's involvement in this tragedy the most productive way to address this case would be a calm and professional investigation by the. not only the russian ambassador to the u.s. has expressed his outrage to the move but a number of has of other russian diplomatic missions in different countries lashed out at the use of recent expulsions. we think this is an unreasonable decision and that undermines russian german relations. and a regrettable that they won't give us any evidence and we just hear that it's highly likely the russia is responsible for this tragic incident we believe the you shouldn't fall for this dirty british provocation all the talk about to use solidarity is laughable as there can only be solidarity in the fight against real threats but not in support of dirty insinuations and over all we've heard from

different high level officials here in russia expressing disappointment and even at times this believe to this recent move by the us a number of other european countries to expel russian diplomats go to other experience given on this delight to say we're joined by former u.s. ambassador to croatia peter galbraith hi there peter watching all this over there from from boston over in the state seems the white house president trump actually was the one to encourage e.u. members to expel russian diplomats he was the guy got the e.u. together so solidly on this jew agree with that. i really don't now. i it's hard for me to believe that he has that much credibility with the know and i would have thought. it was much more to raise and after all britain is still an e.u.

member and it's so close our. the reasoning the white house is given for the us explosions or certainly the closure of that culture in seattle was that it's physically close to a submarine base and also a boeing base seems slightly odd reasoning was what's the connection there. well i mean fundamentally this is a risk it is a response to what the british and i suppose the americans and the europeans believe based on the well based on two things first on intelligence that they may have but also that the nerve agent was a soviet origin that you know you have been an attack an attempted murder. to people on on british soil including the daughter who obviously had nothing to do with mr. cassatt russian citizen as well i don't think we

except the idea that you can go around murdering russian citizens. in in the united states or united kingdom regarding people regardless of their sentences that that you know has a right though with so many investigations still going on here obviously the u.k. says it's maybe it knows of the beyond the sayings maybe it does maybe it doesn't but it's gone of a lot of support here other people are believing it as well russia is saying show us the evidence show is the proof let us get involved in any way well wait for the official investigations to come but are you surprised the u.k. and europe has jumped so quickly before waiting for anything more to come through. now not at all again given that it was a soviet origin nerve gas and given what it had previously happened with. alexander litvinenko in two thousand said it was a long one that was a probably state to old it but it was again never a problem maybe you never get to the bottom of the thing i don't know why you don't know what the british government believes that's what's widely believed that i

suppose there's intelligence about it and again. not something that's easily available anywhere these murder that murder and these this attempted murder carried out by more conventional means i don't know that they'd be the quite the same reaction but these weapons were very specific poisoning with the polonium again material very hard to obtain and. again going back to what president was one case this is another going back to what president putin said about it well. he said well if it was a military strength nerve agent used here with best respect it wasn't exactly very successful if you actually want to kill someone and well i suppose i don't know enough about the dosage or use or a but also you need an order to apply it in these circumstances

you have to use a limited amount it isn't quite the same as what you're dropping it from the air for example that saddam did against not finding a second let's go but let's go back to the diplomatic fallout here what is going to made so the next step was suppose now the next day or two it's going to be moscow doing a tit for tat yet will it be of the same level more or less what you think. i don't know what the russians are going to do they took a much stronger line after in ultimately in response to the expulsions that president obama did in response of the russian meddling in the u.s. presidential election so i really don't know. what the response will be all i can say is that this would be a pretty standard way to respond to this kind of incident. and would there be more tit for tat diplomatically off to russia what is going to do next or will it calm

down for a while my guess is that it will calm down for a while after all the u.s. and europe and russia all need each other. in spite of this incident the common threats that is to say. the islamic state and and southey jihad as north korea. you know whatever's going to happen in iran they require cooperation and you know from us from a chance of trying to each of our countries oh you know those issues are are much more important just going to some of the response from the just really briefly paid to what we got you on the line are you surprised that not everyone was on bold austria was a big member saying no bogey area greece as well the surprise that it wasn't you know enemas. now. astra has always been it is

a neutral country by virtue of the austrian state tree he it's always been a place where there's been a leading ground between east and west. area it's always been historically very pro russian and for that matter so those freaks so. i'm not surprised that everybody didn't go along it. seems normal in the e.u. and i would have say that the response in the in the european countries is more limited it's two or three diplomats and the united states is pretty radical with six. peter thanks for your time former us ambassador peter galbraith really appreciate you making time to be with us thank you. now away from that story of but a kindness that's actually about fire one man's act of kindness in the french alps as landed him in trouble after he helped a heavily pregnant woman reach

a hospital following through if they with me ben what do co is his name he's a member of a volunteer migrant patrol group who spotted this woman and her family which included two small children near a dangerous mountain pass way high up there the mountains the team managed to get them down to a car driving them to hospital where there was stopped by french police no duco was told he'd broken the law by aiding undocumented migrants by doing what he's done mr dakota's now in fact awaiting trial and if found guilty on the french lho could be jailed for up to five years and get a thirty thousand euro fine he says though it was his humanitarian duty to do what he did. while on patrol we spotted a group of people walking through the snow.